You grow as a brewer, and as you do, you sometimes end up pushing yourself into more complex, technically challenging, obscure beer styles. It’s natural. It’s also a great idea, though, to occasionally double back to what can be described as more “beginner” styles, and when you do, you might be shocked at how much better they are this time around. One of my favorites is the robust porter (sometimes called an American porter, though for reasons I’ll get into later, that’s a bit of a misnomer for this version of it), for a very simple reason: this is a beer that can showcase almost any set of flavors you want. Brew one up now, and it’ll be perfect for your winter social events!
Style
Porter is one of the oldest styles, referring to dark ales made with brown malt, originally in London and around England. The name refers to its reported popularity among porters or bearers who worked the docks, rivers, and streets of England at the time as manual laborers and haulers. After a day like that, who wouldn’t want a rich, roasty, hoppy beer?
Porters and stouts bear a number of similarities and came of age in the same era, to the extent that many dispute whether there is even a demonstrable, consistent difference. One commonly touted difference is that stouts tend to make use of unmalted roasted barley, whereas porters rely on black patent—for practical purposes, though, you don’t need to know the difference…if there even is one. (But if you really want to explore the difference, see Ron Pattinson’s “What’s the Difference Between Porter and Stout?”